To Walk in Darkness
by Netherwood
Summary: Raven: Demon-born sorceress of immense power and infinite fragility. When Raven loses control of herself in combat and takes a life, she must put herself back together and relearn what it means to walk in darkness.
1. Self Control

_Disclaimer: Not mine. I'm just playing and I'll put them back when I'm done.

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**To Walk in Darkness, by Netherwood  
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**Chapter 1: Self-Control**

Some days are worse than others.

Some days my morning meditations leave me calm, refreshed, in control. And when I'm in control, I can deal with my teammates and actually enjoy it. On days like that, it's no problem to smile a little at Beast Boy and Cyborg's fight over whether tofu or bacon gets cooked first. I can humor Starfire's latest discovery of Earth delights—last week she found out about sock puppets, and seems to think they're analogous to an ancient Tamaranian tradition of reenacting glorious battles. On days like that, I can make small talk with Robin over drinks. Tea for me, and tea for him if his morning training routine left him feeling particularly zen. Usually, hard black coffee for him when getting up before the sun and splitting practice dummies just puts a chip on his shoulder. Everyone has their off days.

My off days, though, are worse. Some days, my father Trigon's demonic taint pulses in my eyes and throws the whole world into shadow. On those days, my morning meditations leave me barely composed enough to drift into the commons, cloak pulled tight around me, to face the torrent of emotion my empathic powers leave me open to. Those days are when Beast Boy and Cyborg are interrupted when I blow up the bacon and tofu just shut them up. It never helps, because then their fear oozes through the room, choking the air with smoke. Those days, I snap at Starfire, and she sends up a drizzling sorrow that clouds the whole tower for hours. Those days, Robin just nods his understanding of my bad mood and keeps his distance.

This is one of the bad days.

"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos." The meditation isn't even done yet, but I know it's going to be a bad day. The words circle around my mind, but the stillness of void, of perfect emptiness, eludes me. Ha. It doesn't even get a chance to elude me. Today, I couldn't catch it with both hands and Robin's whole utility belt. "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos." The sunlight from my window is making me flush with heat, the pull of fabric is pulling across at my skin, the incense candles are outright acidic—

That's another thing. On my bad days, on the days Trigon's curse runs fast in my blood, everything is more…intense. My blood runs just as fast as the curse, my senses overload, my mind feels… raw.

"Azarath, Metrion…" _Clangclangclang._ "Azarath, Metrion, Zin…" _CLANGCLANGCLANG_. "AZARATH, METRI…"

"Hey, Raven!"

Oh, Azar help me.

Beast Boy keeps trying to beat down my door. I sweep toward the door. "Check it out, Raven," he shouts through the metal. If we could bottle the pitch he squeals at, we wouldn't have to fight supervillains. We'd just open a can of Beast Boy and watch them crumble. "Cyborg and me figured out how to totally keep breakfast good for you today! See, we got a second frying pan, one for both of us! Now I won't have to taste bacon on my tofu, and he won't have to…"

I punch the keypad, and the door slides open to reveal the intruder. He starts to smile big, but sees my rampant need to break him and freezes like a rabbit sensing a wolf. The frying pan _CLANGS_ to the floor.

Instinct tells me to push my shadowy soulself right through his eyes and down his throat and watch him writhe—but instinct, in this case, is just Trigon whispering in my ear. Always whispering. Instead of brutalizing my teammate, I lean forward until he's flattened against the hallway, arms spread against the wall to brace himself and eyes widening into perfect glassy orbs. I take a deep breath. "I. Was. Meditating."

He nods, and his fear clouds the hallway. Genuine fear, not surprise or discomfort from, but real terror. Beast Boy believes that I may well give in to my nature. Part of me wants to drink that terror in. "Um, right then." He waves vaguely down the hall. "I'll just go tell Cyborg to batten down the hatches—I mean, to start breakfast without you." He dodges away and slinks down the hall, then breaks into a full run.

Some days, I have to be cruel and alone. Some days, I need to push everyone back to arm's length, because I might hurt anyone who gets closer.

The tower alert flashes red, the communicator in my gem lights up, and the voice of our commander Robin echoes around me. "Titans, assemble in Ops for briefing. We have a jailbreak."

*****

We're soaring, Starfire with arms looped around Robin and a green pterodactyl squawking and beating its wings to stay aloft with Cyborg beneath him. I'm still within shouting distance of the others, but not by much. The wind is fighting me, trying to throw me across its currents and out of the sky. The others are putting up with it too, but I'm the only one who wants to scream defiance back into the empty, uncaring air.

The city had the good sense to build a new special containment prison in the forest outside the city limits—this way, when the supervillains escape again, we at least have a chance to catch them before they find a residential area to redecorate. The building, grey and squat, rises up from the forest—it was meant to be Prometheus's cliff and chains to unendingly punish the uncontrollable. Now, half a wall is a crater, and smoke drifts up from a courtyard. Lines of shattered trees cut through the forest surrounding the prison and toward the city. Kardiak, Cinderblock, Overload, and Plasmus are on the loose, escaped in one break—but the odds are staggering. Of course they had help. But for now, we focus on the courtyard. Sparks crackle from burning spotlights dotting the wall, soldiers from every window and corner rain a hail of lasers on the sole occupant, who sends back arcs of power. Overload, the lumbering electromagnetic anomaly, dominates the field.

But we're Titans, we have the drop on him, and Robin worked out strategies and tactics for every one of our enemies. Without a word, Robin drops a cloud cover from smoke bombs. We land, and I resist the urge to rip into Overload and blot out the sky with an ebon shield as large as I can create to stop his escape. Cyborg and Starfire distract Overload with sonic blasters and starbolts, and Beast Boy darts in as a monkey holding a few pellets Robin handed him—he throws them straight into Overload's circuit board—Overload's center of being, the only thing holding his energy form together—and they explode into a foam that won't hold an electric charge, causing immediate short circuit. The electricity vanishes with a crackling scream, and the foam clump drops to the ground. It's over in seconds, and we executed flawlessly.

"Great job, Titans!" Robin yells, and then he darts off to get the latest situation from the prison's warden. Cyborg busies himself extracting and containing Overload's board. I walk a few paces away from the fight, but Starfire and Beast Boy follow me.

"Woo, what a knockout!" Beast Boy yells, leaping up and down beside me. "Didja see that, Raven? I didn't even have time to make a 'Charge!' joke! We bad, ladies! We are _bad!_"

Starfire twirls through the air. "He did indeed fall in round the first! Robin's plan could work no better than it did."

Any other day, I might chuckle at the image—Starfire doing air ballet, Beast Boy barely touching ground, and a scarecrow in my cloak standing absently between them. Today, I'm just trying to stay calm as their elation threatens to crumble my control and sweep me along. But I would celebrate by shoving Cyborg out of the way and tearing Overload's circuit board into pieces. I only snarl quietly.

"Titans, get over here!" Robin waves at us from a side entrance to the courtyard; rubble clutters the ground, and a flickering bulb above him struggles to keep the hallway lit. The others rush over; I follow, slowly. "The Warden said Kardiak took the path straight north, Cinderblock went northeast, Plasmus went northwest. We'll need to split up to get them all before they hit the city. Starfire, Cyborg, your strength will work against Cinderblock. Raven, if you can contain Plasmus before he grows too much, I can flash-freeze him with my tools. BB, you can take Kardiak… just be sure to stay in a form too big for him to capture you."

Beast Boy rolls his eyes. "I wasn't planning on a hummingbird. Have you noticed how creepy Kardiak is? I'm not letting him get those tentacles, um, vacuum hoses, um whatever they are around…"

"I'm going alone," I interrupt. That would have been a good time make a pun about how much Beast Boy sucks, because I like getting a rise out of him, but I need to get into the air fast.

Robin gives me that blank-masked stare of his, the one that says he's looking through me, taking in my stooped, guarded posture, my slit eyes barely visible from the depths of my hood, my harsh voice, and even though this is the first time today I've said more than two words to him, he knows exactly why I need to go. Some days, working on this team would be impossible without Robin. "Starfire and I will take Plasmus," he says. "Cyborg, Beast Boy, go for Cinderblock. Raven, Kardiak."

"Dude, when did Raven get to be team leader?" Beast Boy asks. "And when's it my turn?"

Cyborg puts a hand on his shoulder. "Best drop it, BB." He gives me a wary look I've seen him give malfunctioning defense systems. "C'mon, let's go make dust out of Cinderblock."

Beast Boy whines for a minute more, but he and Cyborg set off, annoyed green pterodactyl dragging his load. Starfire, hand over Robin's hand, drags him over to me. Of course she can't let a teammate stay surly. And Robin, the faithful concubine, just gets dragged along with his Tamaranean slave master—no, stop. Stop. That's Trigon talking. I don't hate them. They're my friends, and I won't think ill of them. "Oh Raven," Starfire says, on the edge of weeping, "You seem as unhappy as Klegdik! Is something the matter, friend?"

"I'm fine."

She lifts off the ground and hovers in close. "But you do not look it! Please, tell me what it is that is making you blue!" Would she _please_ get those gooey green eyes out of my face?

Robin pulls her back. "Let her be, Star. Raven, can you hold yourself together?"

I turn away. No. I can't. Not when they're trying to pry me open and drag into the light everything I'm trying to keep hidden and safe. I want to tell them to stop, to just go and let me breathe and concentrate on controlling myself, but I know it'll come out as a tirade, as a threat, so I keep it short. "Of course."

Starfire stamps her foot. "I will NOT let her be! My friend is unwell and needs our help!" She jumps into the air again and puts her hand on my shoulder, ready to pull me around to face her…

I snarl and reach into myself. My shadow bursts out, throwing her backward. Robin has a birdarang out—ha, even Mr. Understanding is ready to fight me—and Starfire's face and feelings are full of… not fear. More like shock. Hurt. "Leave me ALONE!" is the best apology I can force out. I escape into the sky, sick in my chest and stomach. Robin will fix it. Robin will poison her, make her hate me. No, quiet, Trigon! Robin will try to make her understand. I'll have to apologize later, fix it myself when I can look at her calmly again, but for now, I soar, I rip into the sky.

I wish I had some proper thunderclouds. The gale winds suit me, but the cheerful blue sky and fuzzy clouds are wrong. I rip off to the north, looking for Kardiak, looking for a fight. It's harder to follow than the strips of sludge or ripped up trees Plasmus and Cinderblock left to my right and left—Kardiak flies, and only ripped up or mangled a few trees on his way out.

I try to breathe slowly as I search, try to make my pumping heart loosen its adrenaline grip. I run through simple meditation exercises. All in vain, and when I finally reach the city proper, I'm not calmer than I was.

I open my mind anyway, searching empathically for trouble. I can feel a lurking menace, a predator alien to the human mind, but it's hidden by a rankness of a different sort—pettiness, mundanity, thousands and thousands more small-minded individuals in the city running the treadmill day in and day out, grinding at my senses. I curse quietly, try to shut it out, and begin searching manually.

If I were a monstrous abomination recently sprung from prison, I would hunt. With Kardiak, that means schools, playgrounds, theme parks. I dive for the first one I see in the city limits, a little park nestled in suburban sprawl. A thin, high scream tells me I'm right.

I land ten seconds later. A swing is still rocking and someone's icecream cone is splattered in the woodchips around a slide. No other life, meaning the other kids ran.

_BaDUMP._

With my empathic powers, I can feel Kardiak now. Its presence seeps from somewhere in the wild bushes bordering two sides of the playground. Near him, a small mind is panicking. _BaDUMP_. Kardiak saw me land—or sensed, or smelled, or whatever it's capable of, and it's waiting. "Come out, come out," I mutter. "I'll only hurt you a lot." I almost just start ripping the entire hedge up at once, but I make myself focus my mind and walk down the overgrown hedge, searching with eyes for glinting metal or shifting branch. _BaDUMP_.

Its mind tenses, and I have a second's warning. By the time Kardiak bursts from the bushes and slams into the ground where I stood, I've teleported twenty feet away. _BaDUMP._ I can never quite get past the unnatural half-machine, half-organ appearance of Kardiak, and I know the Titans have an even harder time. Its enormous, gleaming wet heart chambers pulse faster now, and the metal tentacle-valves that sprout from beneath the muscle writhe in an effort to push it up from the grass. The clear dome at its top shows a little girl, pink ducky coveralls and white-ribboned pigtails, crying in terror. _BaDUMP._

"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!" The mantra does nothing to make my powers focus, and the black light erupts from my mind and ricochets across the playground, crumpling a swing set before it shears off a set of Kardiak's metal valves. _BadumpBADUMP!_ It flinches and shudders backward, and I sense its thoughts. Kardiak's mind is very simple—seek prey, capture, and use them for its purposes—and it hates me. _Badump._ It does not understand me. I am not prey. I am too powerful, too boiling and angry and corrupt to serve its purposes. It needs children, weak and innocent. _BaDUMP._ But why do I hunt it, it demands. Why do I interfere with its hunt? Why do I not seek my own prey elsewhere? It knows nothing of battle or protecting others. I take to the air and swoop toward it, eyes glowing red and dark power curling in my hands, and all Kardiak sees is an angel or demon, incomprehensible and vengeful, a monster descending in hungry wrath. I decide to oblige it.

My soulself sheathes Kardiak in hungry ebon._ BaDUMP, BaDUMP, BaDUMP. _I imagine how beautifully he'll twitch when I rip his tentacles off, but some part of me is screaming that there's a child still in there, that I must be gentle—I snarl, and reach out and snatch the child with my mind, rip her through the shadow and teleport her away. She lands by the slide, soaked in fluid and sobbing. I immediately forget about her.

_BaDUMP._ My mind reaches past the metal tentacles. I could just rip them off and watch Kardiak squirm defenseless until it's too weak to fight, but I have a better idea after all. _BaDUMPBaDUMP._ I find the muscles of its heart, the tendons and hot meaty bits that quiver and contract. I feel the rhythm, the fast _BaDUMPBaDUMP_ of a predator slamming against a cage. My demon blood rises, and my eyes, already burning crimson, split into four. "You're revolting," I tell it. "Nothing but a devourer, a thing that only knows how to hurt. And I'm going to show you how alike we are." I grab the muscles with my dark kinesis and yank as it tries to constrict, smash as it tries to spread. BabadumpbadumpbaDUMPbabadubababa… It struggles like a man underwater, it suffers, it twitches, and I laugh, I hold on tighter. Here, for one moment, far away from my friends, far away from anyone I need to keep safe, I let go and do what comes naturally. I feel its mind—abhorrent, simple, but sentient, and scrambling to hold on to consciousness. badump. ba…

…

I let my soulself slink back into my body.

Kardiak lies there, slumped, deflated, silent and still, leaking a clear liquid that smells like a hospital. Dead.

I shudder, once, then sink to my knees and throw up. The demon blood withdraws, goes back to its corner of my mind. I can feel my father's influence, smug, but finally quiet—for now. Sated. It dawns on me that I held a heart in my psychic grasp, and I made it stop. That's all Kardiak is, a giant heart. How much easier would it be with a smaller heart, the beating life of any one of our enemies? I almost never touch my enemies with my soulself. I throw rocks, streetlights, even buildings if I must, but wrapping my mind around their body and soul and feeling the things that make them tick... I could end so many of our fights in the space of heartbeats if I would just drink the power, the god-like judgment over life and death, the ecstasy of feeling their lives cease… All I would have to do is stop trying to be one of them, one of the Titans, one of the moral-bound humans around me.

I roll over, away from my sick, and stare blankly into the sky as I thumb a message into my communicator: coordinates, enemy contained, please rendezvous at my location. I could vanish again, soar back to the tower and lock myself in my room and panic and meditate and hide in my bed until I'm ready to face the other Titans again, but moving might make me sick again. The grass pushes around my tangled cloak and tickles me, the smell and taste of vomit keeps me nauseous, and the first tentative birdsong starts up again now that the battle's quiet. Time flows, and flows, and flows.

A sniffling head pushes into my view. "Lady? Are you okay?" Scared, concerned, still crying—the girl I saved.

"No," I tell her. "Are you?"

She hugs herself, trembles, and bursts out balling again. Her fear and pain wash over me, but I keep myself together—maybe because she's acting so much like I want to. Beast Boy would make faces. Cyborg would tell her everything's safe now. Robin wouldn't have any idea what to do. Starfire would fuss and rock her back and forth and sing a glass-shattering Tamaranean lullaby. I can't get up yet, the world is still heaving, but I reach out and draw her down and hold her as she sobs into my cloak. I feel like if I can help her get through her fear, maybe I'll survive my own.

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_More to come. Thanks for reading! Please leave a review. _


	2. The Facade of Health

_Disclaimer: Not mine, I'm only playing and I'll put them back when I'm done._

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**To Walk in Darkness, by Netherwood**

**Chapter 2: The Façade of Health**

I'm warm, comfortable, and safe. This is the first thing that registers when consciousness slowly comes back to me. There's a blanket over me and a soft bed beneath me. The lights are on but dimmed, and the room smells sterile. The infirmary in Titans' Tower—someone brought me back. I'm a little sore, but in control.

"You were out about three hours," Robin says. I turn my head on the pillow and see him next to my bed, his arms crossed and his chair leaned back against the wall. His blank mask reveals nothing, but I can feel his relief, wariness, and concern slowly churning. "BB and Starfire both wanted to be here when you woke up," he tells me. "They're worried about you."

So Starfire and BB still feel safe in a room with me. I make a mental note to be nicer to them for awhile. "And you came instead," I say. The fact that Robin's here would be touching if I didn't know why he took the 'privilege' himself. He had to make sure I wasn't a danger to anyone. He trusts me—I have to believe that—but Team Leader Robin has to protect the entire Team. It's his job.

"How are you feeling?" he asks.

"I'm in control of myself, if that's what you're asking."

Robin stiffens. "If Beast Boy were here, he would probably start a fight over how you take everything we say the worst way possible. I'm not Beast Boy, so I'll just tell you—I'm worried about you. You, Raven, Teen Titan. So I really meant, how are _you_ feeling? Are you okay?"

"But knowing I'm not going to blow the room up must help, right?"

"Always." Robin flashes his thin, lopsided smirk to let me know he's laughing. "Now answer the question, or I'll tell BB and Cy to set the video games up in here and keep you company."

"I'm…" Drained. Angry at myself for losing control, losing the one thing that's most important. Angry at Kardiak for being exactly what I let myself become in a moment of weakness, what I gleefully dived into for a few scant minutes. Scared at what might happen next time I go into combat. Desperate for good tea, a clean rainy sky, and a long day of meditation. "…Tired."

Robin picks up a plain bag I hadn't noticed. "Star and I got your message, mopped up Plasmus, and headed straight for you. When we got there, Kardiak was dead, you had passed out, and a little girl was crying and trying to wake you up." Robin pulls a teddy bear out of the bag and tosses it; I don't try to catch it, but it lands nicely on my bed anyway. "I told her she was probably wasting her time, but she insisted on giving you that. She seemed to think you needed it more than she did. Starfire flew you straight to the Tower after that. Your turn. What happened?"

I have a sudden, strange urge to hug the bear and bury my face in its softness, but just grip the sheets instead. "I caught up with Kardiak in the park. It already had the girl. It tried to ambush me, but…" How do I say that I held life in my hand and laughed as I tore it apart? "…but I fought back. I was thorough."

"Why?" He doesn't say it with disbelief, or betrayal, or fear. Just a simple question.

But I seize it anyway. "Damn it, Robin, quit playing games with me! You know why. I lost control of my demon. My emotions got away. My power blew up in Kardiak's face. What more do you need?"

Robin suddenly leans forward, frowning. "Because you were scared the girl might get hurt? Because you had a bad day? Because it felt good? I've worked with you for years, Raven, and I've seen you control yourself while going through all that. I've only seen you truly furious and out of control maybe twice, and even then you didn't kill anybody."

I stare at the ceiling, watching the lights blur and dance, because I can't look at Robin or any of my friends right now. "I would have," I say quietly. He doesn't say anything, but I can feel his hesitation. "When I pulled Dr. Light into my cloak and when Slade was Trigon's messenger. Are those the two you're thinking of? If you hadn't stopped me, I might have kept torturing Dr. Light until he was a shell. And if my father hadn't granted Slade his power, the things I did to him would have killed him."

"But you didn't. Both times, just a nudge was all you needed to stop. What was so different this time?" He sounds so certain, so full of conviction and faith in me.

I remember the way Kardiak's mind felt—a devourer, completely focused, created for the sole purpose of desecrating. I remember stooping down to its level, giving up my control and breaking down into something cruder, baser. "I don't know," I say. I'm too ashamed to say it—I stared into the shadow, and it stared back.

Robin waits for more, but I'm not sharing. He sighs. "Plasmus, Cinderblock, and Overload are safely in custody again. Apparently, security cameras caught Red X sneaking in to set all four of them loose before making his getaway." Red X. So that's who ruined my day. I'll have to thank him. Robin keeps going. "Random mayhem isn't Red X's thing, so I bet it was a distraction of some sort, but no clues what. And now, I have to let the police know exactly why they have a corpse to deal with." Robin stood and started to leave, but paused at the door. "You know, I can only keep the others out of here for so long."

I should say something to the other Titans, try to reassure them while I'm still calm, if not exactly happy. And I'm fine physically if a bit tired, so there's no good reason to wait. "Don't bother. I'll be out in a few minutes." He nods, and leaves.

I pull myself out of bed. My cloak hangs by the bed, so I retrieve it. The cool fabric feels good wrapped around my body again, adding an extra layer between me and the intensity of the world. I pick up the teddy bear—it's light tan, big enough to cuddle, very fuzzy, and has a slightly loose left eye. I decide on impulse to take it, but dangle it from one hand like we just met on the street and we don't actually know each other.

It's a short trip to the commons, and the sound of video game explosions welcomes me before I reach it. Beast Boy and Cyborg don't hear the door slide open and are too busy bouncing up and down on the couch to turn around, so I glide up behind them. Beast Boy crows as one of the little men on the screen jump kicks the other into submission.

Cyborg tosses his controller. "What gives man, that was so cheap! Stop using the same dang move over and over. Or do you just not have the skill to mash more than one button?"

Beast Boy laughs and leans back into the couch. "You just can't take humiliation, can you?"

"Yeah Cyborg, don't be a sore loser," I add, smirking. "Beast Boy's never actually won before. Let him savor it."

They both turn, completely surprised—and then Beast Boy scrambles over the couch back and launches himself at me. I barely have time to go wide-eyed and steady myself before he tackle-hugs me, sending us both staggering back through the air. "RAVEN!" he shouts right in my ear. "You're alive and not trying to kill everyone! Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

I glare across a gap of two inches into his green, watery eyes. The frantic joy pounding out from his body threatens to send me to the floor, and I realize I'm not yet as steady as I thought I was. "Off. _Now_."

He freezes, and gingerly steps back. "Um… sorry, Rae. For, y'know, being worried about you."

Cyborg moves in before I can respond. He's more restrained, and only puts one heavy arm gently on my shoulder. "How you holding up, Raven?"

I nod. "I'm tired, but… I think I'm okay. For now."

"Alright. You know what? I think this calls for barbeque. You've got to be starved after all the excitement. Dinner tonight's gonna be a stack of the biggest ribs I can find and a helping of my special sauce." He watches, tentative and trying to help.

"I… I'd like that. Thank you."

Cyborg bursts into a full-on grin and thrusts one fist in the air. "_Alright!_ Barbeque all around! 's good to see you up. Now, if y'all excuse me, I have a feast to prepare." And Cyborg, muttering about honey glaze, tromps off and leaves me alone with Beast Boy.

Beast Boy's still radiating hurt feelings, and he doesn't quite meet my eye. "Um, Starfire said she wanted to talk to you when you're up. Last I saw, she was circling the Tower."

"Look, I'm sorry about…" I know I should say it, but it's still hard. Beast Boy's mind is the hardest to deal with—he feels exactly like he acts, a riot of energy and constant change. Just being near him sometimes tires me out. How does he do it? It's like he tries to feel an entire life's emotion every day. I rush to get it out. "I'm sorry I snapped, okay?"

He smiles a little. "And you're already snapping again."

"Well, you're snappable." Snappable. Brilliant. Next I'll sound like Gizmo.

"Look, if you're really sorry, then I have a favor to ask you, okay?" Beast Boy actually manages to look shrewd while he says it.

This sounds like a bad idea, but I badly want to keep the peace right now, just long enough for me to get back to my room and meditate alone. I need the Titans to know I'm okay, even if I'm not, if only so they don't crowd me. "What?"

"Let me give you a hug."

…

"Raven?"

My mind starts up again after a few seconds. "You want me to do _what?_"

"C'mon, Raven, one hug. Everyone needs a hug now and then, and spooky goth chicks don't get off free."

Mechanically, I set the teddy bear aside and raise my arms.

He blinks. "Seriously? Are you for real?"

"Hurry it up," I snap.

He grins. "Don't need to tell me twice!" And he hugs me.

It's not like the tackle he gave me earlier. We fumble around trying to figure out where to put our arms, a little mismatched because he's so much shorter than me. He's tentative, careful, probably a bit afraid I might bite. But he squeezes firmly, keeping a little distance between our bodies. "I know you're probably feeling pretty crappy right now," he tells me, head next to mine, "But we trust you, we know you had good reasons for doing what you did, and we're here for you." And then he lets go, and I'm left dumbstruck as he makes his way out of the commons. That was… thoughtful. Beast Boy was thoughtful. I'm not sure how to take that.

He stops at the door and sniggers. "By the way… nice teddy. He's very gloomy."

I grab the bear and get ready to throw him at Beast Boy. "OUT!" And Beast Boy escapes through the sliding door, laughing his head off.

I feel like I'm keeping a painstaking checklist. Item: Reassure Robin. Item: Be nice to Beast Boy. Item: Come to Cyborg's barbeque. Item: Don't melt anyone's face. I don't know how the social butterflies like Starfire and Beast Boy can fling themselves into this sort of balancing act without forethought or difficulty. Me, I've had enough. Starfire will have to wait her turn.

My room waits for me, and I get there in record time. I find a place for the bear and put it snug between two statues of hissing four-eyed demon birds. I pull the heavy drapes open, and smile when I see that a threatening wall of storm clouds swept in while I was unconscious. They're late, but I appreciate the gesture. I open the windows and stand on my balcony for a few minutes, letting the wind whip my hair and cloak around me. There's something about wind that entrances me, something that calms me down. It has no riot of emotion like any one of my teammates, no will or consciousness to call its own, yet standing in it evokes an emotion of peace as tangible as though I were tapping into it empathically. I wonder if this is how Starfire feels most of the time. Except, you know, with bright happy things.

I find my meditation mirror and run my hands along the dark frame and thorny blades jutting out at strange angles. My mother gave it to me as a gift when I left my home, Azarath, banished to walk my own dark path leading away from a city of light. She told me the mirror lets me peer into my own mind and would be useful in ordering myself and examining the patterns of thought that create my life. She said she wished she could give me something that would let me always feel her love, but a tool against the darkness would have to do. The mirror was a bright, pearl-adorned treasure then. After I attuned the meditation mirror to my own mind, I discovered that its form changed to match its owner.

I hover cross-legged, chant my mantra until the world dissolves around me, and stare deeply into the mirror's glowing reflection of my eyes. The glass flashes an angry red, and I lose all sense of space.

I drift for a moment as the mirror delves into my mind and interprets what it sees into something I can consciously comprehend. The sky appears first, black and shuddering with pockets of red light. The ground is next, a winding path of stone that twists in impossible curves and defies gravity and reason. Then the shadows come, flitting behind rocks and beyond the edge of my vision, red eyes glittering in empty space before ducking away from my gaze. I do not like this place. I can accept that this is an accurate picture of my mind. I can accept that there are depths of my psyche even I cannot fully grasp. But I'll never like it.

I trudge down the path, keeping careful watch. When the mind is unsettled, all paths lead to the problem, so it doesn't matter if I'm trying to get to it or even if I know what it is. All I must do is be willing to face myself, and opportunity will come. A shadow detaches itself from the others, and one of my demonic ravens flaps onto a withered tree by the path. They often act as guides when I come here—they are, after all, mine. "Hello, raven," I tell it. "Where do I need to go today?"

"Turn back," it calls in its sweet voice.

I blink. "What?"

"Turn back," it calls again, and another raven hops into view and speaks with it. Soon more join them until every branch or rock is a mass of teeming feathers and shadow, calling "Turn back!" from all around. They're treating me like an intruder, warning me away from the penalty of straying into places where I don't belong. And how can I be an intruder in my own mind? But they gather and sing, "Turn back!"

I look beyond them, trying to see what they could possibly be keeping me from. Down the path, floating above the ground just beyond a set of pillars, I can see a cloud of red energy crackling angrily. That's it; it has to be. I start forward. Maybe it's the physical weakness left over from this morning. Or the cracked empathic defenses I usually keep so diligently. But I'm calm and controlled again, and those remnants don't sound nearly so serious to warrant this. The ravens turn angry, sprout extra eyes, and take to the air to swarm me, but I brush them aside and break their forms with my soul-self. "Nice try," I mutter, "but I'm not that far gone. I still own my mind." I pause briefly at the pillars, just feet away from the crackling red energy. Every inch of me tingles with dry electricity as I stand so close to it. Every set of pillars represents a jump between layers of my mind, and the path between them leads deeper and deeper. I take a step, between the pillars and into the storm.

My mindscape shudders, and I enter a claustrophobic cave burning with red light. A twisted version of myself with demonic red eyes and tattered black cloak towers over a rough stone altar bathed in shadow energy. The demon looks at me, and smiles. "You came." Its voice is sweet and childish and hungry. "I knew you'd come."

I stagger back. "By Trigon's wrath, what the hell _are _you?" This _thing _isn't any of the facets of my psyche I've seen before. Not even Hatred, which takes the form of my father Trigon when it's completely out of my control, shakes me as much as this.

"I ate her," the thing whispers. "Hatred. That's why my cave glows red with her light. But Hatred isn't as strong as me, never as deep as me." It laughs and grows even taller, and shadows extend from its cloak, reaching and grasping. "Do you want to see where I found her?" The thing whips the shadows back from the stone altar.

A tortured figure, wrapped in black cloth and masked with a broken skull, writhes in agony. Red X. He screams as though the shadows are pulling him apart, and I can see blood leaking from tears in his suit.

I point at him. "This is too much. He doesn't deserve it. Why are you hurting him like this?"

The demon laughs. "You know why! I found Hatred hurting him. He's not the real Red X, of course, just your idea of him, a toy conjured up to take your anger out on. Hatred was raging about how you only met the darkness because _he_ had to let Kardiak out, how it was all Red X's fault and Hatred was going to kill him when you caught him for real." The demon ran a trail of shadow across Red X's chest, and he shuddered and screamed mindlessly again. "I just think he's delicious."

I summon my soulself, feel it boiling at my hands. "Red X did nothing more or less than any supervillain in any of our battles. What happened was my fault, my weakness. Release him!"

"Do you believe that?" The demon shakes its head. "You're more naive than Beast Boy." And it springs forward. I thrust my power into it, trying to drive it back, but it envelops me.

I understand what I did to Dr. Light, to Slade, to anyone I've held in my grasp and tortured in a moment of anger and weakness. I understand because I feel it now. The demon reaches into me, and my darkest fears rise before me, laugh at me and hold me in their power. They feel as real to me as though I'm living them. I feel myself turn into the most horrible embodiment of Trigon's wrath, I watch through my eyes as I slaughter my friends and burn the earth in my path. I feel myself resist my father's influence but go mad from the fight, isolated from everyone around me. I feel myself go berserk in battle, and my friends scream my name in agony, trying to bring me back even as they're forced to strike me down. I feel the utter helplessness and terror as my friends fall in battle or argue and split apart. I live a thousand futures, every one a terrible possibility.

"Azarath… Metrion… ZINTHOS!" I cling to the mantra, strive for emptiness, and flee. "AZARATH, METRION, ZINTHOS!" I let my power surge in all directions, denying the visions, telling myself I'll fight them, I won't give in, I won't become them. I slide away from the grasping shadows, powerless to break them but staying one inch ahead as I writhe free and fly through the cave, tearing toward the dim light from the path I came in. The shadows are close, trying to wrap around my legs and feet and sending sharp needles of pain through me, but I hit the pillars and find myself soaring along the path once again. I reach the place I first entered the vision as though the intervening space was simply nonexistent, and the outside world tugs me upward. I cast one glance backward, and the demon stands on the path, laughing at me. "I'm still here!" it yells. "I'm still inside you!"

I wake from the trance on the floor screaming. My power is wild, loose, punching through my room like a strobe light and shattering everything in sight. Statues explode, scrolls and books fly through the room, my bed tears into bits of mattress and cloth. I scream and scream until my voice vanishes and my powers fail. I can still feel the demon inside me, quieter, but jangling my heart about. I breathe, trying and failing to hold onto a meditation to calm myself.

Then I notice the glow.

The destruction is bathed in a soft emerald light. I look around, and find Starfire hovering on my balcony, face unreadable and eyes lit in the darkness. Beast Boy said she was flying around the tower. I left my windows open. Of course she saw the power erupting from my room.

"Starfire… how long have you…"

"Raven, dear friend," she cuts in. "You are not well. When we next go into battle, you must not fight alongside the Titans."

* * *

_And that's chapter two! Thanks for reading, please leave a review. If all goes well, the next chapter will be up next Friday._


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